RIM: Baird Sees Developers Stray From ‘QNX,’ iOS, Android Gain

By Tiernan Ray

Baird & Co. analyst William Power today relates the results of a survey of 250 mobile application developers asked about their preferences for smartphone and tablet platforms for which they develop.

Most of these developers were small shops, with 80% of respondents reporting 1 to 10 employees, and slightly over half were from North America, a third from Europe. Games were the most popular category among these developers, he notes.

Among Powers’s findings, he sees trouble in the partial erosion of Research in Motion’s (RIMM) developer base: “35% of BlackBerry developers plan to shift some or all of their work away from QNX now that RIM plans to support Android applications. In our view, this doesn’t bode well for the long-term QNX eco-system.”

RIM’s QNX software runs its “PlayBook” tablet computer and is expected to be used as the main operating system for the BlackBerry handset in 2012. Power writes that he and his team contacted “all currently published QNX developers” for the survey, and heard from 15% of them.

Interest in Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Phone 7 is growing, he writes, and “Feedback from the recent Mango update was very positive.

“94% and 85% of developers view the long-term outlook of [Apple's (AAPL)] iOS and [Google's (GOOG)] Android as either excellent or strong, significantly above all other platforms.”

I'd say it is a safe bet that developers are not writing apps for QNX phones; since they are not any available and won't be any for about a year.

How many apps are they writing for the Equinox 7 phones that are being imported from the planet Jupiter ??

JUNE 30, 2011 3:53 P.M.

@Steve wrote:

Actually they're currently writing more Apps for the Equinox 7 than the QNX Playbook et cetera. And that will only continue to further escalate. Why? Cause most people are pretty sure anything to do with QNX won't be on this planet for very long. Just a feeling most people have. Lot can happen in a year like the death of a platform. Did I just say death? I meant to say the passing away...

JUNE 30, 2011 3:56 P.M.

Tiernan Ray wrote:

Steve: Power is not referring exclusively to handset developers here. The survey write-up refers to both tablet and handset developers. The QNX developers referred to would appear to be those that have been developing for QNX on PlayBook.

JUNE 30, 2011 4:02 P.M.

Where's NAZ? wrote:

Dude. Long time no see?

JUNE 30, 2011 4:21 P.M.

James wrote:

That's actually bad news for iOS Android WindowsPhone developers.

1. Programmers for Rim are usually bottom of the heap, but there are still a substantial number of them enough to pollute the iOS Android WP pool of programmers. These Rim refugees would fudge down the pool by grossly lowering their cost structures and taint the currently good pool dragging down everybody because the public cannot tell who from who.

2. Rim in its death struggles will again be up to its dirty tricks to bribe and sabotage the pool of iOS Android WP resources just enough to spoil this good camp. Newbies coming to the programming world are most susceptible to Rim's dirty scams end up ruining perfectly fine newbies. This could impact the long term programming companies good in developing long term employees.

3. Android doesn't need another manufacturer, especially the ones like Rim. Rim is one of the bad boys among manufacturers constantly making trouble for everybody. Rim's incessant attacks against the very idols they clone after, Apple for example, is going to be make Rim the biggest shxt distriturber and will become a thorn in Android's side.

4. Rim is truckloads of inferior shxtware. Those malpracticing Rim programmers fleeing to iOS Android WP are going to bring their shxtware and malpractices to the good iOS Android WP camp and poison it.

5. These bad Rim elements will drag down the good iOS Android WP high standards and reputation down a few notches. This bad influences had happened to the SAP developer community and contributed a lot the ruinations in pays, reputations, damages to unsuspecting employers, and the SAP community at large, notwithstanding the damages they wrought upon SAP. Today, many SAP client companies had been sabotaged by these unscrupulous bad influences paralysizing the entire SAP community. The same could happen to iOS Android WP. These bad influences are like locus.

JUNE 30, 2011 4:22 P.M.

Fred T wrote:

Did they really need a survey to tell us that QNX is not being received well? Do we need to kick RIMM between the legs when they are already face down on the floor? RIMM really needs to purge it's staff of all the deadbeats that will not allow it to move ahead. It starts at the top. If the co-CEOs are still around in a year, the stock will be below $20.

JUNE 30, 2011 5:12 P.M.

InTek wrote:

Naz hung himself in his parents' basement in Waterloo right after the last earnings were reported by RIM.

R.I.P. RIM & R.I.P. Naz

JUNE 30, 2011 5:16 P.M.

God wrote:

You people are foolish. When RIM migrates to QNX phones and tablet, there will be great incentive to develop for QNX. Also, what many people fail to realize is that the best apps available on any BlackBerry device are the ones made by RIM! Take a look at the Facebook for PlayBook app. It's great. Yet there is no such thing for the iPad. How interesting.

JUNE 30, 2011 7:29 P.M.

Francis wrote:

James, What's wrong with you??? did your ex girlfriend who dumped you in public own a Blackberry or something? Seriously buddy, you need to chill out.

JUNE 30, 2011 9:15 P.M.

Anonymous wrote:

The execs at RIM were already giving the secret sign to those around them that RIM's days are numbered.

Every time you see the bald guy, or the chubby one with white hair adjusting their tie, touching their nose, or scratching their chin that's the secret sign.

Yep, the secret sign. They're letting you know the end is near.

Lots of people left work this evening seriously depressed.

You don't even have to buy a Blackberry if you want one now. Blackberries are being abandoned left right and center. The whole province is just littered with Blackberries.

So far the deaths remain unaccounted for. Blaming someone now doesn't even matter. Nothing matters now. Unless a hockey team shows up. Whoa then it's a different story eh.

JULY 5, 2011 4:20 P.M.

Chris wrote:

@James, you are kidding right? Good pool of devs on the iOS/Droid/WP front, really? How much have you downloaded lately? The pool is filled with crap on all fronts. You have to do SERIOUS looking to find well done apps for that, or this, or the other. The 80/20 rule holds here, it's actually like 99/1. 99% of mobile developers produce crap, 1% produce something well done and/or useful. I'm not defending RIM devs either, there is mostly crap in App World too. It's too bad, if these 1-to-10 sized companies building mobile apps had to run in enterprise development circles, they'd be thrown out w/ the trash on day 2.

JULY 5, 2011 4:25 P.M.

Chris wrote:

now that i've read BELOW james' post, i'm not feeling as ill. thank you god and francis! some good points by god as well, if you have used ANY of the integrated communication on BB OS 6 you can't begin to explain to a iOS, Droid, WP user (Mango might be the exception) as to how much better doing real day to day communicating is on the BB platform. All my email, social, phone, vm, all in once place, all dealt with in a single pass...universal search. The other players have all tried and they have all failed to date. That could change, but I'd take the ideas and integration produced by RIM's best and brightest in their 'super apps' any day of the week over what it takes to get it done on a Droid or iPhone.

JULY 7, 2011 4:09 A.M.

John wrote:

The ignorance here just crack me. I can tell most people, including the author himself, have no idea of how big of a threat RIM will become once they release their QNX-powered smartphones. FYI, QNX
is used in the most demanding environments in the world such as nuclear power plants, military tanks, fighter jets, corporate inventory processing, etc and has proven reliability, security and power. I dont see Apple and Android making anything close to this for a decade.

JULY 11, 2011 4:06 P.M.

DB wrote:

I agree, most of you have no idea what your talking about when it comes to QNX, it is an excellent, robust, proven system (please look it up) that I would take over android any day. The playbook offers superior multitasking, responsiveness and screen clarity and definition. The issue is not with QNX, it is with the low number of apps available, and the fact that RIM rushed the playbook out without all it's core applications such as email. They will add these features in this year however. Yes they do need to get one or two QNX phones out ASAP and ditch the old BB OS, and all of the old phones. The longer the carriers try and sell these old blackberries, the worse it will get.

JULY 18, 2011 2:29 P.M.

Anonymous wrote:

I don't see what the big deal is its going to be almost a year till the QNX phones come out.. also they are making the new OS so android apps can be uploaded to the BB app world

AUGUST 28, 2011 3:54 P.M.

tryecrot wrote:

Yes there should realize the opportunity to RSS commentary, quite simply, CMS is another on the blog.

About Tech Trader Daily

Tech Trader Daily is a blog on technology investing written by Barron’s veteran Tiernan Ray. The blog provides news, analysis and original reporting on events important to investors in software, hardware, the Internet, telecommunications and related fields. Comments and tips can be sent to: techtraderdaily@barrons.com.